There’s been a large accident involving approximately 50 vehicles near cloppenburg on the A1 in northern Germany.
Not too many details at the moment as it’s breaking news on n-tv.
Information is still very scant but focus.de are saying there is at least one fatality. (I would have thought so)
Not much detail yet about the nature of the accident other than it is described as a Massenkarambolage (mass pile-up)
focus.de/politik/schlagzeilen/nid_92615.html
The weather is thought to have been a contributory factor it is emerging. There had been a snow flurry in the place where the accident happened shortly before but it is said to have stopped by the time of the accident. The pile-up happened 1km before the Cloppenburg junction on the southbound carriageway of Autobahn 1.
rp-online.de/panorama/deutsc … -1.2679753
n-tv now has some pictures of the incident.
n-tv.de/mediathek/bilderseri … 78061.html
Scary, I used to travel that road quite often, sometimes 3 or 4 times a week.
I am here: maps.google.com/maps?ll=55.928588,-3.270107
It’s not theirs anymore,
This is our England now.
Paaaaarrrrrrttttttttyyyyyyyy
It is now widely reported that there have so far been no fatalaties caused by this incident.
Also, the number of vehicles involved is no longer thought to be as high as earlier reports suggested.
Here is an attempt at a translation of a more recent article from nwzonline.de:
Multiple accident on the A1 near Cloppenburg: Injured evacuated by helicopter
A mass pile-up on the A1 between the junctions for Ahlhorner Heide and Cloppenburg left 13 people injured including 2 seriously injured according to preliminary information from the police. These were taken away by rescue helicopters. More than 25 vehicles drove into one another in a total of five collisions. Mathias Kutzner, the spokesman for the highway police in Ahlhorn, said that contrary to initial reports there were no fatalities.
On the main accident site, about 1km from the motorway exit for Cloppenburg, 5 lorries and 15 cars had been involved in the crash. Preliminary information suggests a lorry driver had recognised a traffic jam too late. He hit a stationary truck which in turn was pushed into a car and consequentially more cars ploughed into one another.
“The sun had been very dazzling at the time of the accident” Said Kutzner, the police spokesman, but He could not confirm whether it was hailing when the accident happened. “The road users have been very lucky”, Kutzner said, reffering to the ruins which were scattered accross the highway.
BTW, just in case anyone thought my reporting of this has been bad, this is how badly wrong msnbc have got it:
photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20 … bahn-crash
They’re currently reporting 3 killed in this incident but they’ve mistaken a report from The Telegraph which refers to a 52 vehicle pile-up which happened on Autobahn 31 near Muenster last Friday for a report about today’s incident and taken their information from that.
There have been several very nasty accidents on Germany’s autobahns over the past couple of months.
The Telegraph’s article about last weeks 52 vehicle pile-up is found here:
telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne … orway.html
Certainly very sobering. These autobahns are much narrower and twenty times busier than Finnish motorways, where the speed limit is much lower, especially in the winter.
I use this section of the M1 all the time, sometimes (for sunday-related reasons!) I come off at Cloppenburg and continue towards Meppen / Hoogeveen, sometimes continue on the M1 down through the Ruhr and out by Venlo.
I’m loathe to admit that I misread the Telegraph’s article as well as msnbc. That wasn’t last week’s crash in muenster that was last year’s!! In any case they’re having a lot of pile-ups recently in Germany.
Zetorpilot:
Certainly very sobering. These autobahns are much narrower and twenty times busier than Finnish motorways, where the speed limit is much lower, especially in the winter.
Judging by incidents over the past couple of years it looks like the Germans ought to consider doing something similar.
These were some of the worst of them:
January 2012
Today’s incident.
November 2011
24 vehicle pile-up on the A9 Leipzig-Berlin
2 killed and 9 injured
November 2011
52 vehicle pile-up on the A31 Near Muenster
3 killed 14 seriously injured
September 2011
36 vehicle pile-up on the A5 Homberg-Ohm
1 baby killed 37 injured
April 2011
80 vehicle pile-up on the A19 near Rostock
8 killed 90 injured
December 2010
51 vehicle pile-up on the A9 Berlin-Munich
1 killed 12 injured
January 2010
50 vehicle pile-up on the A5 Teningen-Freiburg
2 killed 4 injured
I’m sure gonna keep my distance if I go over there any time soon.
Red Squirrel:
I’m sure gonna keep my distance if I go over there any time soon.
Definitely!
I’m heading off to the UK next week and will be coming that way… carefully!
Is unlimited speed, of cars obviously, a factor?
Spardo:
Is unlimited speed, of cars obviously, a factor?
there is a limit on that section
It’s not theirs anymore,
This is our England now.
Paaaaarrrrrrttttttttyyyyyyyy
Okey-Didley-Dokely:
Spardo:
Is unlimited speed, of cars obviously, a factor?there is a limit on that section
Oh, in that case I’ll rephrase the question:
Is limited speed, of cars obviously, a factor? 
I’m really not surprised 
I knew they love too fast driving! famous autobahn on some sections with unlimited speed limit
I checked up on this story today and there is nothing new to add.
It’s correct that nobody was killed surprisingly enough and it involved approximately 25 vehicles.
last january I almost jack-knifed my truck a couple of minutes north from the cloppenburg junction, I was fully loaded and doing a steady 30kph, not braking or accelerating. the road was horrible.